“Go far enough to the Left and Right and you end up in the same looney-tunes science-hating place.”
A popular notion, but, unfortunately, incorrect.
Firstly, the Birchers were right that a number of fiendish communist plots were in play. They were wrong about fluoride, but that doesn’t mean either that they hated science or that suspicion of fluoridation is particularly right-wing. The original article noted that it is the leftards who are fighting fluoridation in Portland.
Secondly, our Aristotelian model, with the golden mean in the middle and decreasing merit as one proceeds in either direction therefrom, is also incorrect.
The spectrum stretches from God on the right to Satan on the left. There is no “center,” and no one could possibly get far enough to the right.
I’m a regular old rabid right wing extremists and I love science.